Family joins in on Peoria volunteer's Bush encounter

Saturday

Jul 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 26, 2008 at 9:27 PM

After handing Roy Storey a blue box containing a small pin, thanking him for his service as a local volunteer, Bush caught sight of Sarah Smiles along with her sister and her family, waiting behind a concrete barrier with a small crowd of onlookers.

Frank Radosevich II

Sarah Smiles was excited and proud to know her 85-year-old father, Roy Storey, would be meeting and accepting an award from the president.

She did not know it then, but Smiles, too, would get her chance to greet the commander in chief. After handing Storey a blue box containing a small pin, thanking him for his service as a local volunteer, Bush caught sight of Smiles along with her sister and her family, waiting behind a concrete barrier with a small crowd of onlookers.

Both the president and Storey gave them a wave before Bush blew them a kiss. Then, after speaking with Storey, Bush motioned for the Peoria man’s family to step out onto the airstrip to meet together.

"It crossed my mind that it might happen, but I didn’t think it would," Smiles said hours after the brief visit. "So I made sure I wore my best jewelry."

Secret Service agents whisked the family onto the tarmac where, minutes after disembarking from Air Force One, President Bush put his arm around Storey and his children as the group posed for photographs.

"President Bush looked at me and said, ‘I know you’re proud of your father,’ and I said, ‘I’m fiercely proud,’" Smiles recalled moments later. "And the president looked right back at me and smiled and he said it right back to me, ‘Fiercely proud!’ And I said, ‘That’s right!’"

Stephanie Sellers, Storey’s other daughter at the Bush visit, said the meeting was a jewel in the crown for her father, an immigrant who left a hardscrabbled life in little village at the foothills of the Himalayas 50 years ago.

"I’m just so proud of my dad. He’s proof that if you work hard in the United States of America, you can accomplish anything," said Sellers, who attended with her husband, James, and two children, Owen, 4, and Zoe, 2. This is truly the land of opportunity, just look at my father."

Storey came to America with his late wife in 1958 from India. Before that, he spent his childhood living in an orphanage without shoes until the age of 17. Since 2002, Storey has been a mentor at three Peoria District 150 schools, Glen Oak Primary, Hines Elementary and Von Steuben, where he tutors more than 100 children a year in reading and math.

Bush recognized Storey for his volunteer work at the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program of Peoria and Tazewell counties. RSVP is a program for residents older than 55 to share their skills and life experiences through volunteer service.

"He said, ‘Hello Mr. Storey, I know you,’" said Storey, his voice still carrying a slight Anglo-Indian accent. "He congratulated me on the job I was doing as a mentor. … It felt awfully good."

Overall, Storey said the whole experience and its accompanying fanfare was a little surreal and, at times, overwhelming.

"But I’m very proud, I’m very, very proud," Storey said.

Frank Radosevich II can be reached at 686-3142 or fradosevich@pjstar.com